Laptop or Netbook recommendations

I spilt a cup of coffee into my laptop this morningoh:
Things look pretty terminal at the moment and a new laptop or netbook will probably be required. Does anyone have a recommendation for a reasonably priced machine that I can ask Santa to supply.
Thanks in anticipation

Brisey

Growing old is mandatory - Growing up is optional :Cool:

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.oh:
You don't stop playing because you grow old - you grow old because you stop playing!

Better to have one and not to need one, :thumb: than to need one and not to have one. oh:

The last three laptops which I have bought have all been Acer machines and all have been satisfactory. I didn't go out looking for any particular make, it just happened that they were the best fit to my requirements at the time.

Worth thinking about what you actually want before you go looking. There are wide ranges, these days, of things like screen sizes, battery life, hard drive size, memory size, weight etc.

Hi Brisey, I've just been through a similar loop with wanting a small neat lappy for the motorhome. I first bought an EEE PC which has a 7" screen, runs Linux operating system and has a 4GB solid state hard drive. I outgrew it for the following reasons.

The 7" screen was just too small and the pixel ratio (long side to short side) was not standard so you needed to keep changing the resolution to see various web pages.
Linux operating system is a pain in the bum unless you are a computer geek (I'm not but have been fiddling since the 80's!). It bears similarities to Windows but installing anything is major agro.
The supplied programmes were ok for normal word processing, spreadsheets etc but had a lot of installed childish rubbish which you could un install. Snag was it didn't release any disk space! Really odd! Then there's the disk space 4GB of which Linux occupies nearly 2GB.
I gave up on Linux and installed XP and more RAM memory to speed things up but it drove me mad with the tiny screen and odd resolution.
I then saw a Toshiba NB100 with a 9.9" screen, Windows XP and 120GB proper hard drive. It costs neck end of £300 but what a little gem- it's a proper computer, good bright screen (proper ratio) with lots of pixels for a sharp image and a decent battery life.
I sold the Asus on eBay and haven't looked back.

I would wait until after Christmas for the bargains, there's a lot of 9.9" lappies out there but the Tosh seems a quality item. Oh, one drawback- the lettering on the keys is grey on black keys and is difficult in poor light but I've found some keyboard stickers to go on the keys to make it a lot easier.

Acer have always offered great value and excellent quality hardware. I am a computer engineer and would not reccomend anything other than Acer and have one myself. Ultimately it depends on your requirements but you can always go for the Atom mini laptop, Sue got one this September and loves it. The only problem is that they don't have CD drives but for less than £30 you can get an external DVD/RW.

The Aspire One above is 120GB Hard drive, be careful as some come with Linux and some only have Flash Drive rather than Hard drive. The one above has XP home (you can have vista but would be relatively slow).

Yeah, as i said, depends what you want it for, there are 1GB models available and you can upgrade them to 1.5GB yourself. They are not designed for game playing or anything radical, 512 is fine on XP home.

If you want 3GB then buy a larger laptop but bear in mind, to get the same speed from Vista as you get from XP you would need twice as much RAM. i.e XP with 1GB would compare to Vista with 2GB RAM. Even then you will still find it to be relatively slow. Most Vista machines have over 60 processes running once booted up, xp has less than 25.

The best advice that anyone can give you is this.

1. Buy something that suits "Your" needs, if you don't need a webcam built in then get a model without one etc...
2. RAM isn't everything, if you want a fast machine then the more the better as a general rule but more importantly, choose a machine with the best processor possible as that is the part you can't upgrade.
3. You can always add more RAM and change the hard drive for a larger one.
4. Make sure you get a decent opperating system, not Vista Basic! (It's Naff) Go for either XP or Vista Ultimate.

That one looks like a more modern version of the Aspire 5612 which I bought in February 2007 (and still use when we are away from home). It took me a couple of days to come to terms with Vista - mainly changing default settings to match my personal preferences, which I do whenever I buy a new machine - but otherwise I have had no problems with it.

Mark mentioned the great value and excellent quality hardware offered by Acer, which reminded me that when IBM sold laptops they were actually built by Acer.

One thing to take into account when considering a machine running Linux is that many (all?) Internet dongles do not come with Linux drivers so that restricts locations where the machines can be used for Internet access.

No Vista is rather improved since they brought out its first service pack a short while ago, it fixed many of the faults that Vista had. As GJH mentions, it just takes a little while to find your way around, like anything new.

That Tesco's Acer looks like a great bargain, as long as you don't want to play the latest Hi-Powered games or do any high tech Computer Aided Design then it will suit your needs perfectly i'm sure. The processor is good and there is plenty of Hard Drive space. Before buying, check the Max RAM specification as you may find that you want to upgrade the RAM Memory later however, for normal computing 2GB should be ample.

Thanks for your advice, it is much appreciated. The Acer seems to tick all of my boxes, I dont run games or high spec applications, just surf the net, e-mail and do a bit of photo editing using Paint Shop Pro. Will have to get my head around Vista, most machines come with it installed now so no choice really.
Hope you have a good trip to France, we like Honfleur, there should be plenty of room on the aire, you might even get an EHU. Shops and restaurants should be open on Boxing Day.

Brian

Growing old is mandatory - Growing up is optional :Cool:

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.oh:
You don't stop playing because you grow old - you grow old because you stop playing!

Better to have one and not to need one, :thumb: than to need one and not to have one. oh:

Don't dispair if you spill coffee on your laptop; preferably black unsweetened coffee. Simply remove the battery as soon as possible and immerse the whole machine in cold water for about 5 minutes shaking it to ensure water removes the coffee. Remove from water and leave to drip dry or help out with hairdrier. When dry replace battery.
This system is operated frequently at a friends office by the computer team - but be sure to remove the power (battery) asap!:thumb: